A Time to say 'No'

Be warned that this post has nothing to do with food. Seldom have I posted negativity in this blog. But I think it is time for me to certain things off my chest. It has been weighing on me too long that I have no will to blog of other stuff at all. I do not know if this post will draw any flak. All I ask is that if you find this post offensive, don’t read it. Allow me to vent my emotions on my own blog. I do not expect you to walk in my shoes or feel how I felt.

1) Have your parents been humiliated by your in laws during the wedding preparation?
2) During the wedding dinner, your parents were being treated as if invisible?
3) Till this day, they had never spoken to each other because your in laws think your parents are holed up in 3 room flat?
4) Have your parents been accused of as snobs when the real snobs are your in laws?
5) Despite meeting your in laws only during Chinese New Year, it can still become a circus act, gossips that followed months and months later?
6) Over a period of 7 years, your daughter met her ‘so-called’ grandfather on 7 to 9 occasions?
7) You do not even know where your in laws live?
8) Have your joy of a first time mother doused with words like, ‘I already have 4 grandchildren’?
9) Have your pride of a first time home owner being trampled upon, just because you could only afford a HDB flat?
10) Your sis in law returned and insisted a bigger ang bao for her kids even though your husband was jobless and relied on your income at that time?
11) Your sis in law gave your kids clothes so worned out that even your helper didn't even want them?
12) Your sis in law gave big packets sweets and chocolates to your kids which were so close to expiry dates?
13) Have your calls for help being answered only a year later when the crisis was over, and that they came questioning if what you said a year ago were true?
14) Despite of all these, they expect you to fulfill your obligations to them when the need arises?

As the verse went, ‘A time to kill, a time to heal’. And this is my time, a time to say ‘No’. A relative from IH’s side said, ‘Do not have pride, forget and forgive and life is all about relationship, do not deprive the kids of their grandparents.’ Well, I would like to tell this self righteous relative, who has never been married, never had in laws like mine and whose womb never nurtured a child to hold her tongue.

Do not have pride - It is not about pride; it is dignity. My parents definitely did not raise me up just be treated like that. I did not receive education to be treated like that. I did not have children just so you could treat them like the way you people did.

Forgive and forget - It is so easy for you to say 'forgive and forget' when you are not at the receiving end. You may request, but the choice is up to me. In the first place, there wasn't any apology.

Life is all about relationship, do not deprive the kids of their grandparents - All their lives, my children have only known and loved one set of grandparents. At the age of 4, Ah Girl told my dad that 'the other old man' is not her grandfather because he doesn't love her. Upon hearing those words, how would a mother feel? My MIL was so indifferent towards Ah Girl and Ah Boy, perhaps they didn't even know she is the grandmother. What relationship? How can one be deprived of something which they never knew they had? My kids don't even want to be carried by them or speak to them. To them, my in laws are nothing more than strangers. Whatever love they couldn't give, my parents gave, my aunts and uncle gave, unconditionally.

There was death in the family recently and so the drama unfolds. I refused to attend the funeral and told IH that the kids are too young to go. It took them 7 years and a funeral to remember that they have a daughter in law and grandchildren somewhere. 冰封三尺，非一日之寒。If they expect instant reconciliation, they are mistaken. I may be married to IH but I am not enslaved to him or his family. I have the same earning power, I stand on even ground. Being an outcast for so long, I refuse surrender my freedom. I do not want to waste my energy on my in laws anymore. Out of sight, out of mind. I am fine as long as they stop bothering me. I am not stopping them to see the kids; that is if they ever bothered to. But don't expect me to play nice, that's hypocrisy. Brand me unfilial, unforgiving, vindictive, I don't care. I insist, call me Madam, not Missus. I do not want to carry his family name for I am my own master.